Which direction would you run the flooring and why?

7 years ago

This will be glue down on slap flooring. I'm getting Kahr's engineered canvas collection oak floor. The boards are 5" wide.

Yellow areas will be tile. In the back entry (including the powder room) and the front foyer I'm planning on using cement tile inset into the floor. The bathroom will also be all tile. Everything else will be the engineered hardwood flooring.

So which direction should I run the floor boards and why?

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Comments (3)

Architectrunnerguy
7 years ago
Much like ceiling breaks, change flooring materials at defined room "edges". In other words, figure out something else for the foyer (I know, "The dog has wet paws"!). FWIW, my own foyer is hardwood, we have a small area rug there and 8 years later it still looks like new. Now that I think about it, I've designed numerous houses with hardwood foyers and 25 years later they still look like new!

At least you don't just have it in the kitchen! Lived in a house like that and it looked horrible with the tile stopping about 2' out from the island!
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cpartist thanked Architectrunnerguy
Jane
7 years ago
Hmmm, I'm leaning toward vertically(?) because it looks like the planks would lead you between rooms, and the planks would go the length of the hallway. I didn't go through the whole floorplan though. Think about how you would place the furniture.

My planks are parallel to my main sofa but cut across the short width of the kitchen. Since I don't look at the floor of the kitchen very much, it doesn't bother me. When I put hardwood in the bedrooms, the planks will be parallel to the lengths of the beds. They will be perpendicular to the planks in the stair treads, and I think that might be better especially if the stair tread planks are a different width than the floor planks.

Think about the flow through the rooms. The planks will visually lead you through the rooms. Start with the front door. The tile there will lead you somewhere, then the floor might pick up the path. The foyer tile is throwing me off. Would you want to carry the foyer tile through the hallway to the master suite entrance? That way, if you had wood treads on the stairs, you would have some contrast. Or you could do wood in the foyer and paint the stair risers white. I would not depend on the stairs remaining carpeted or with a runner.

What are you planning to have on the stairs?
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Thanks. I know that was a little confusing. I'd post a photo of the layout but the photos are on a computer that is inaccessible right now. Anyway, it sounds like you are both recommending laying the floors in the same direction as existing ones(was my instinct, too) despite the thresholds - the opposite of what the builder wants to do. My Q about the island was really whether or not it's preferable to have wood planks go parallel to the island. The fireplace is opposite the kitchen (hood and fireplace face each other at end of a "great room". and the island is between the two. Wood can either be parallel to the island or to the length of the room leading to fireplace, but not both. Doing the latter also runs the floors the same way as existing. Hope that clarifies somewhat! The thresholds are to adjust for a 3/4" or so difference in floor height. busybme, Good question as to what material we are using. Existing floors are prefinished hardwood, but addition needs to be an engineered product, since it's on a slab. Complicating things are that my existing floors(Mirage) are an unusual width and set of lengths and I really want to match the look. The existing floors also have a microbevel, something i'm not sure I want in a kitchen. I hear it's hard to match old prefinished to new, since the colors will be off after a few years. The answer seems to be to put in site finished engineered floors and stain both floors to match. Still not sure what to do about matching the planks for size and bevel, though.
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There are several things that must be considered. I like to use the concept of MOST amount of flooring that follows the general rule. If you have a single room (lets say 10' x 10' = 100sf) and then the REST of the space is much, much larger (say 600sf), you would want to try to keep the MAJORITY of the flooring (600sf) sticking to the rule of "longest length = long run of the room". The other question with hardwood becomes wooden subfloors. Sigh. Wooden subfloors over joists change the equation. Hardwood floors must be run perpendicular to the joists - no matter how big/small the rooms are. So...without knowing your set-up, without knowing your subfloor, without knowing the direction of sunlight, without knowing very much of anything about your situation...the majority of the home should follow the rule of thumb. Unless other factors contribute to changing this. Which I can't tell because there isn't enough information. And just for fun...diagonal is always an option = 15% waste and a more expensive labour bill.
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By the sound of it you personally are installing said floor... ever done it before? At least do a practice run and DO decide on the optimal length of the boards. It’s essential to the process to plan ahead and have a VERY good mitre saw. I jumped in to the deep and and I did my first floor ever in HB. Needles to say it did involve taking a crowbar to a few duds before getting it right. ...And know the centre of your room. I decided on a “carpet” of HB with straight run planks bordering the perimeter. But do listen to SW... doing it all in this method will be overkill, especially in what appears to be a very small apartment or house based on the floor plan. And which way do your joists run? Never lay flooring parallel to a joist unless you’ve added an extra layer of ply as an additional subfloor (its code my friend). So lay the floor across the joist as much as possible. AND get a moisture meter. If the floor is not properly acclimated you will have “shrinkage”. Not a good thing.
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Vertise
7 years ago
last modified: 7 years ago
I would do vertical. I have read to follow the lead of the windows so the light flows along the length of the boards. Vertical boards will flow nicely leading from your front entrance, as well as the hallways, versus running them horizontally against the flow.
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cpartist thanked Vertise

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Which direction would you run the flooring and why?

Comments (3)

Architectrunnerguy

Jane

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Vertise

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